---
title: "Beverage innovation strategy and demand mapping | antedote"
description: "Demand mapping and innovation strategy for a home drinks business: consumer needs mapped against drink categories, opportunity areas and ideation."
url: "https://antedote.com/explore-our-work/beverage-system-innovation-strategy/"
author: "antedote"
---

# Choosing where a home drinks business should innovate next

For a systems business, every new drink idea is also a question about the machine. A home drinks business wanted to grow beyond new flavors, so we mapped demand across drink categories and defined opportunity areas, each with what it asks of the machine.

**Client**
Beverage company

**Industry**
Drinks

**Kind of work**
Innovation and concept development

**Our role**
Demand mapping, innovation strategy and workshop facilitation

## What happened next

Two of the opportunities named in the strategy later launched.

## The question

The company wanted to add sales beyond new flavors and line extensions, and to choose where to innovate with the machine in mind.

Its choice was which drink categories to reach into, which consumer needs it could credibly serve, and which areas deserved engineering and pipeline investment. Each new idea would test what the machine can make, and what people trust it to do well.

## Our approach

We started from consumer demand, mapping broad drink needs against drink categories and assessing, cell by cell, where the brand could play at parity, stand out or disrupt.

Every opportunity was tagged to a horizon and a level of ambition, from close-in moves to longer-term bets, so the pipeline could be balanced on purpose.

Each opportunity area came with the ingredient, packaging and machine requirements it would bring, so every idea started with its technical demands in view.

In the facilitated innovation workshop that followed, the ideation mix was weighted across breakthrough, adjacency and extension, so the session would not drift toward the familiar.

## What the team came away with

Innovation leadership had a demand map and opportunity areas, each with the needs behind it, an estimate of its demand and the technical requirements the machine would have to meet.

After the workshop, the program continued into concept development and an innovation roadmap for the leadership team.

## Related work

[View innovation and concept development case studies](https://antedote.com/explore-our-work/?work=Innovation%20and%20concept%20development#library)

- Spirits

    ### [Shaping one spirits proposition for different palates](https://antedote.com/explore-our-work/shaping-one-spirits-proposition/)

    The proposition later launched.

- Drinks

    ### [Setting the taste direction for a new hot drink](https://antedote.com/explore-our-work/a-hot-drink-designed-sip-by-sip/)

**What we do**
[Innovation](https://antedote.com/what-we-do/innovation/)

## Deciding where to grow, or what to develop?

Bring an ambition or an early idea, and we’ll talk through where to start.

[Talk to us](https://antedote.com/talk-to-us/) · [hello@antedote.com](mailto:hello@antedote.com)

A partner or director will reply.